


problems in plainclothes

by meek-bookworm (readertorider)



Category: Rigel Black Series - murkybluematter
Genre: Gen, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29169915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readertorider/pseuds/meek-bookworm
Summary: Did anyone really think James would let Harry wander around Diagon alone, after everything?
Comments: 43
Kudos: 129





	problems in plainclothes

**Author's Note:**

> idea stolen shamelessly from modelbob7's comment on discord

John Dawlish reached into his oversized purse and pulled out a small silver flask, pouring a generous slug of revolting liquid into the cup in front of him. The department expense budget covered meals while on the job, but Dawlish had gotten the second cheapest tea. As far as he was concerned, tea and polyjuice were pretty much indistinguishable anyway. He was more interested in the Leaky’s distinctive tea cups--no one would look twice at a witch mixing up hot toddy. 

The Fawn was due to arrive in the next half hour. Until she appeared, Dawlish would read the paper, pretend to sip his drink, and try to puzzle out just what he was doing here. 

The face of it was simple enough. The girl’s family was a lightening rod for the ire of a good portion of the country. There were threats. The girl had stayed in protective custody, but there was only so long anyone could stay cooped up. That John Dawlish was protection detail instead of one of Moody’s cadre of Junior Aurors was just a matter of the girl being the daughter of the Head Auror.

The Minister wouldn’t see anything in it out of the ordinary, but Dawlish had known James for over a decade now. Dawlish had also seen a recent picture of his target. Harriet Potter had striking green eyes, unruly black hair, and looked entirely different from the androgynous youths splashed across the papers. The risk of anyone recognizing her was low and James wouldn’t begrudge any of his Junior Aurors the experience of elbowing through a Diagon Alley crowd and possibly activating an emergency portkey on a recalcitrant charge.

Dawlish brought the cup to his lips, waited a moment for the benefit of any watchers, and set it back down again. If this was exactly what it seemed, young Tonks would be sitting here, pulling the double duty of basking in her important responsibility and preserving the polyjuice expense budget.

In the eyes of the general public it made sense to assign a more experienced Auror for a greater risk, but if James expected something more dangerous than Tonks could handle, there would be a team of Aurors on protection detail or the girl herself would be under polyjuice with a false name.

If Dawlish had to bet, he was here for his deliberate reasoning, experience with Rigel Black, and, quite possibly, for his very public and rather humiliating defeat in the maze. He could not guess what James suspected about his daughter, who officially was a person of no interest in “The RBC Inquiry”, but the boy Dawlish knew as Rigel cared deeply for his friends. If there was a chance of safely passing a message back to his co-conspirators, he would take it.

And everyone with even a passing knowledge of the kid knew it as well. 

That would be why it was Dawlish sitting here, pretending to sip tea and read the paper. James was relying on him to deal with the situation if Rigel appeared.

The fire flared green, a black-haired girl tumbling out, and Dawlish quickly drained his cup before folding up the papers and replacing them in the giant handbag: the Fawn had landed. As maneuvered himself out of the pub, shopping list held up to his face and quill clutched in his teeth, he kept a wary half-dozen feet behind the girl, but she appeared to be preoccupied with her own affairs.

She beelined towards the Apothecary’s shop, and Dawlish settled himself on a bench with a good view of the large windows to better rummage through his purse. His hands found the “reading glasses” he was looking for, and he slipped them on, holding the ever-useful _Prophet_ up in front of him.

The paper, along with the bricks, shelves, and wares of the shop faded into ghostly insignificance. Against this shadowed background only two figures were picked out in glowing magic—the girl and the proprietor.

Tate had been interviewed early on in the investigation and had readily coughed up his records after Kingsley had expressed an interest in the contents of his back storeroom. Aside from frequent shipments to the girl throughout the years, the man had been cleared of any contact with the conspirators. 

If Rigel did appear he would come from outside.

The interminable minutes passed slowly as the girl hand chose seemingly every leaf and doxy stinger. An older teen appeared, lounging against wall of the shop and playing with one of the elevated planters, but he did not enter. Dawlish resisted the urge to tell him to move along. Eventually, however, Dawlish’s patience was rewarded as a black-haired, blue eyed wizard entered the shop.

Dawlish had never put much stock in the idea that the boy behind Rigel Black was older than he seemed. Gossip in a children’s school moved faster than lightening and gossip about Rigel faster still. While Rigel was protective over his friends (overly so, in Mr. Malfoy’s case), dedicated to his studies, and had suffered more than wizards several times his age, there was a charming naivete and impishness about him that was entirely characteristic of his youth. Aging him up was an easy way for his co-conspirators to claim a little more sympathy from the general public while also making him harder to find.

That didn’t mean, however, that the older teen who had just entered the shop wasn’t Rigel under polyjuice. There was entirely too much polyjuice going around in this case, in Dawlish’s opinion.

The boy’s greeting, “If it isn’t little-miss-homeless”, ringing through Diagon as the door closed, certainly implied that he recognized her—suspicious enough considering her changed appearance. Dawlish toggled his glasses over to the sight enhancement setting, engaging the spells for lip-reading. Hopefully they would stay within view of the huge shop windows.

“Lestrange,” the girl’s lips said, and then she tilted her chin and Dawlish lost the next few words, “— recognize me?”

And that made the polyjuice theory much more likely. He remembered the Lestranges from old investigations—they were some of the SOW party’s most ardent supporters on blood rights, even going so far as to send their son to Durmstrang because they felt the Hogwarts admittance criteria were too permissive. It was difficult to imagine the Lestrange Heir bantering with a disgraced Light halfblood under ordinary circumstances.

For this was banter. Dawlish could only catch one word in several between their shifting postures and the passersby blocking his view, but the girl’s body language was easy and relaxed and the teen was leaning in towards her, the corner of his mouth twisted in a smirk.

Then the boy said something and the atmosphere changed completely. The girl tensed up and the boy didn’t notice, still smirking as he said something more. The girl made to leave, her hand on the doorknob, and Dawlish had an excellent view of the boy’s face as he said, “I bet you, your cousin, and that little blood thief you abetted set his career back twenty years.”

No mystery there that it was James he was talking about. And he probably wasn’t too far off at that. James was competent, talented, and clever, but after a certain point in the Ministry promotions were partly political and James would forever be tainted by the scandal. Dawlish had even wondered if James was wrapping things up to resign. The timing was terrible with V-whatsit on the loose, and James likely stood the best chance of protecting his daughter where he was, but there was only so long before Fudge felt the pressure and decided to shift the blame.

Dawlish had missed the next stage of their argument, but now it the was the girl leaning in. He could only see the back of her head, but the boy was facing towards him. 

“I don’t know what you’re rambling about,” Lestrange said. His carefully blank expression did not invite Dawlish’s trust.

The girl obviously didn’t believe him either, for whatever she said next had him rearing back and stalking away.

Dawlish shoved the glasses and _Prophet_ back into his bag and bustled (his bustle was a skill he took great pride in and had earned him top marks in Concealment and Disguise) across the street. It seemed likely that what he had just witnessed was a falling out between the conspirators, and he had some questions he wanted to ask Rigel off the record before he vanished again.

He pulled out his badge as the girl slipped out the shop behind him, palming his wand in his other hand.

Lestrange sneered and blustered, but he produced his wand easily enough—a perfect match of the one registered to the Lestrange Heir. He refused to provide blood, but instead summoned a house-elf who rattled off the appropriate credentials. 

Somehow Harriet Potter knew the Lestrange Heir well enough to get into an impassioned argument with him in a shop. And she was now wandering Diagon, her only legitimate errand completed.

Dawlish made his hasty apologies and dashed to the door, the Lestrange Heir on his heels.

They were just in time to see Harriet accept a knife from another boy, the teen Dawlish had seen loitering outside earlier, and bend down to tuck it into her boot. Harriet and the other boy were speaking, but Dawlish could not discern individual words, and even though they were close enough that he should be able to lip-read, the shapes slipped through his mind without adding up to a greater whole. 

The boy must have placed a wards when he was fiddling with the planter earlier. Obviously a privacy shield combined with some sort of notice-me-not charm to judge by the disinterest of the other shoppers. The ward didn’t prevent him from seeing the tears glittering in the girl’s eyes, however, and he couldn’t help the pang of sympathy when she slipped into the boy’s arms and started sobbing.

Lestrange cursed fluidly and stalked away, but Dawlish moved slowly toward the pair, wand in his hand, but still aimed low, toward the cobblestones. The boy kept a wary eye on him, but most of his attention seemed to be on the girl in his arms, one arm tight across her back while his other hand smoothed back her hair.

Once he was a few paces away, Dawlish stopped and waited. There was something about the way the boy stood, the glint in his eye, the aura confidence with a hint of a dare, that reminded him of his erstwhile student. His age, fitness, and obvious familiarity with knives fit Rigel’s profile, and it would explain much if Rigel came from the poorer quarters beyond Knockturn. 

If this boy was Rigel he needed to not startle them now. While he didn’t truly think Rigel would willingly harm anyone, never mind the girl he was cradling in his arms, there were plenty of other reasons he should tread lightly here.

For one, somehow he didn’t think James would appreciate learning that his daughter had run off with who he suspected was the most sensational fugitive in half a century.

For another, even if this boy wasn’t Rigel, he did not look like someone that Dawlish wanted to be fighting in the middle of Diagon in a dress and stays.

And also, Dawlish really did not want to deal with comforting a crying girl in public. 

So he waited as the boy murmured to Harriet and stroked her hair. Eventually her sobs began to subside, and Dawlish readied himself to approach. He took advantage of a band of shoppers coming between them to ready the emergency portkey he carried for the girl. He would get her to safety, then deal with Rigel.

Except once the crowd passed only the girl remained, watching him while she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“I assume you’re here to take me home?” Harriet Potter asked, and for an instant, something about the resignation of her expression, the tilt of her chin, and the sheer cheekiness of the question put him back in the maze at the end of an unexpected defeat.

Then he blinked and it was only James’s daughter standing in front of him again. 

In the future he probably should stay away from combining polyjuice and tea--it made him see Rigel everywhere.


End file.
